


of potions and stupidity

by NL08



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Light Angst, M/M, Worried Jaskier | Dandelion, geralts literally just living his life, hes trying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:00:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22738420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NL08/pseuds/NL08
Summary: Suddenly, with lightning speed, Geralt pulled two potions from his pouch and drank them both together, throat gurgling a little from the force of two whole potion vials at once. Jaskier felt sick.That’s four,he thought gravely, fully aware of what that meant.Or, Jaskier stresses about Geralt being an idiot
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 14
Kudos: 314





	of potions and stupidity

_Geralt!_ Jaskier screamed inside his head, careful not to interfere with his witcher’s losing battle. He watched with pure horror as Geralt narrowly missed a spew of acid with a sluggish roll to the left, standing slowly and managing to deal an unimpressive blow to the archgriffin. He’d been getting slower and weaker as the battle had drawn on, despite the two potions he’d drunk. He’d underestimated this particular beast, that much was evident even to Jaskier.

_Stupid witcher._

Every part of Jaskier willed him to run over and try to help, but that small shred of rationality within him held him back. He had no weapons on him, no armour, no nothing. If he put himself into that mess of a fight he’d surely die instantly, but more importantly, he’d distract Geralt. His body surged with nerves as he watched, helpless, from where he’d been left at the edge of the clearing. The archgriffin made another swipe which clipped Geralt’s abdomen as he tried to dodge, and Jaskier bit back a shout. Noise would just be a distraction.

He furrowed his brow. This was going badly. Geralt was _losing_.

Suddenly, with lightning speed, Geralt pulled potions from his pouch and drank them both together, throat gurgling a little from the force of two whole potion vials at once. Jaskier felt sick. _That’s four,_ he thought gravely, fully aware of what that meant. _Four is…_

His thoughts were interrupted by the archgriffin’s visceral screech as the witcher finally managed to deal a critical blow, the beast reeling from the pain and swaying on it feet. Geralt, growing increasingly sluggish, grunted as he managed to pull back his blade and thrust it up through the beast’s chest, cutting off the scream as the creature abruptly collapsed. With a final bought of strength he struck a third time and twisted the sword through the flesh – Jaskier let out a soft breath of relief and began stumbling over. Somehow, miraculously, Geralt wasn’t dead. He hadn’t lost.

“Geralt,” he cried as he slipped about on the wet mud. “Is it dead?”

Geralt nodded a little and turned to look at the bard. Jaskier almost stopped dead in his tracks as he finally saw the elder’s face, anger welling up inside of him and fusing with his nervousness. He cursed loudly inside his head.

Sweat and dirt glazed across the witcher’s pale and clammy skin like some unsavoury cake icing. Thick, black veins practically pulsated from his eyes, which themselves were sunken in deep, clouded blackness. Jaskier resisted to urge to shout at him, choosing to quietly continue his stream of internal curses instead.

_Stupid fucking idiot witcher._

He slowed his pace as he approached for a closer look.

Geralt’s scars looked fresh again. He was ablaze with crimson blood; some his, some the dead beast’s. As Jaskier drew close enough that he could feel Geralt’s hot breath on his cheek, he noticed how the witcher wasn’t focusing on him, eyes altogether murky.

Despite himself, Jaskier brought his hand up to the other’s ghastly face, delicately tracing one of the thicker veins from the edge of his face right to the corner of his eye with the soft pad of his middle finger. Geralt didn’t react, but Jaskier knew the sensation was probably unbearable. He knew this Geralt. He knew how overstimulated his senses were right now, and yet here the he was, stroking him like a common puppy.

Yet he couldn’t pull his hand away. He cupped Geralt’s drawn cheek instead and focused on the quick pulse beating under the skin as he tried to think of what to do. Geralt was alive, but, not for the first time, he’d been rendered an absolute fucking mess.

Suddenly Jaskier straightened up, causing Geralt to raise an eyebrow.

“Pouch?” Geralt passed it to him without thinking. After a moment rifling through Jaskier found it and forced some levity: “It’s white honey time.”

He made to uncork the bottle but Geralt stopped him with a firm hand, apparently only just having realised what his companion was doing.

“Can’t,” he grunted as he struggled with the sensation of the words in his chest and mouth. He took Jaskier’s free hand and pressed it against his pierced armour; Jaskier immediately understood.

Warm and sticky blood was oozing from the wound with an unsteady zeal. Under normal circumstances Jaskier would have instantly fished out some swallow and sloshed it over the wound (as he had done once or twice while Geralt was unconscious), or forced some stale bread down Geralt’s throat. As it was, they hadn’t brought any food, anticipating a simple fight for some reason, and Jaskier feared the influence of another potion.

Concerningly, the witcher was still failing to focus his gaze. Jaskier did sigh this time. “Alright, follow the melodic voice of the bard,” he whispered softly, once again clawing for some levity to soothe himself. His hand rested at the small of Geralt’s back as he lead him slowly to the edge of the clearing, the witcher making a concerted effort to walk at his normal pace. He stumbled on the mud and swayed like a drunk, but Jaskier did his best to steady him without applying too much pressure.

He guided them with uncharacteristic caution, gently leaning the witcher against a sturdy looking tree. Geralt barely reacted.

“I’ll be two moments.” He pulled his hand back. Again, the other barely responded, eyes spinning in his head and body slumping heavily against the tree. Jaskier let the pit in his stomach linger as he realised that Geralt was letting him help and fuss.

Jaskier rushed back over to the archgriffin to get the abandoned silver sword. It was caked in blood and clayish mud, and Jaskier scrunched up his nose in disgust as he picked it up. He made quick work of the beast’s neck, gagging several times despite having done this before, and scrambled back to where he’d left his dear witcher.

Geralt had squeezed his eyes shut, no doubt to lessen the overwhelming nausea caused by all the stimuli.

“Whistle,” he commanded, and Geralt did. Roach appeared instantly and Jaskier tied the head to her saddle with an unspoken apology.

“Up.” Geralt mounted her with a distinct lack of grace, almost slumping off the other side as he miscalculated the force. He winced and kept his eyes firmly closed. Jaskier took off in the direction of the village, knowing Roach would follow, and swallowed back unease.

He hated this. Right now, if Jaskier wasn’t here, Geralt would probably be thundering about in the underbrush, skidding on the damp ground and cutting himself on the thorny bushes. He’d sluggishly scope out a place to meditate to build some strength, heal the wound, hope nothing found him before he had the chance to build strength. Jaskier had seen it all before, the whole process far too haphazard and prone to problems for his liking.

Just one more beast would have seen the end of Geralt of Rivia. If that archgriffin had had a friend, Jaskier was confident that the witcher wouldn’t have been able to beat it, heightened senses and adrenaline be damned. Jaskier’s thoughts clouded as he realised this for the thousandth time. The more potion he takes, the more he loses control – he was at the mercy of destiny, and destiny was a callous bitch.

He glanced up at Geralt in the saddle and emotion flushed through him with renewed vigour. The witcher sat slightly hunched, eyes still closed, hair loose and matted. To anyone else, he’d seem fine. An intimidating presence with those harsh black veins, terrifying to any enemy. But Jaskier knew better.

Geralt had had too much potion. Far too much. Again.

He’d sworn to Jaskier that he tried with careful precision to always avoid this situation, yet he’d done it again.

He must’ve been desperate.

He must’ve been about to lose. To die.

Jaskier bit down on his lip again as he pulled his gaze away and returned to the road ahead, desperately crushing the confusing swirl of anger, betrayal, fear and love that flurried inside him. The only thing that mattered was getting Geralt to safety so he could sleep, everything else simply had to wait.

* * *

The innkeeper was clearly very distressed by Geralt’s face, which Jaskier didn’t entertain as he brushed past him and up the stairs, hands now firmly glued to the witcher’s shoulders as he lead him to their room. It occurred to him faintly that he probably didn’t need guiding anymore, but Jaskier was struggling to think too rationally. He wanted to touch Geralt, so he did.

Jaskier opened the door to their room and rushed to blow out the candles and close the windows. Geralt smirked at him, eyes finally open again and managing to focus much better than earlier.

“It’s fine,” he said to the bumbling bard, sitting to take off his boots. “A breeze would have been okay.”

Jaskier allowed himself a huff and collapsed onto the bed. “Just tryna help,” he complained, childishly.

“I know.”

Before long they were both on the bed, lying down in the pitch black, fully clothed aside from their shoes. With his vision slowly unblurring, Geralt could finally make out Jaskier’s face. A pang of guilt hit him as he saw the weariness on the bard’s face, and the anger that he was poorly trying to bury. No matter how hard the bard tried, his emotions were always as blisteringly pellucid as his singing. They lay in silence for a little while before Geralt decided to address it.

“I needed a stronger strike,” he explained. Jaskier didn’t reply. “I wasn’t hurting it enough, so I needed something to help.”

“Is that why you took two at once?” His back was to Geralt, words angrily bouncing about their room.

The witcher smiled despite himself; Jaskier was furious. No-one was ever _furious_ with him. Well, not for things like this.

“Did you see what those were?” he asked back instead. The words felt very soft against his lips, his heart so warmed by the bristly little man beside him that his whole sense of self was crumbling as he spoke. “It was just thunderbolt,” he whispered. “I only had that and swallow. Barely toxic.”

“You took _four_ potions, Geralt, I saw you. Any of those things are dangerous when you have _four_ of them.” He sat up and span to face the witcher, who was still wearing a faint, affectionate smile. This angered Jaskier even more. “You are such a hulking imbecile! You swore you wouldn’t do this to me again! I can’t fucking stand it when you’re like this.”

Geralt listened carefully, but couldn’t quite order his thoughts, so Jaskier went on. The sound of his voice was painful, just as the sensation of the blankets were, but he bit back his discomfort and in response it lessened by the second.

“You make yourself so… so… _vulnerable._ What if there had been another archgriffin lurking? Or even just a fucking drowner? You wouldn’t have been able to take it on, would you? It would’ve bested you and you would have lost. You’d’ve _died.”_ Geralt opened his mouth, but Jaskier continued, his voice crackling with tears lodged deep in his throat.

“And for what? Because you were too fucking idiotic to _think._ And I would’ve watched you! You would have made me watch you fucking kill yourself.” Tears were streaming now. Geralt sat up, his legs brushing Jaskier’s. “One more potion and you would’ve just died on the spot, and I would’ve had to watch you go.”

He couldn’t speak anymore, silent tears clogging up the words, but Geralt grimly realised that the bard had said more than enough. He knew more than Geralt had thought. He understood things humans rarely cared to try and understand.

Stupid really, Geralt realised, to underestimate his knowledge. They’d travelled together for so many years, they’d spoken about this exact issue before. Jaskier knew some of the potions’ names and effects, he knew that white honey helped when he’d had too much, and that it would stop the effects of any other potions. He _knew things._ And yet Geralt had stupidly panicked him by acting like an idiot and chugging the toxic little fuckers back like water after a run.

Geralt huffed a little in annoyance at his own carelessness, then focused on how to soothe the other.

“I wasn’t going to die,” he started. “You forget that I survived for years without you and I’ll survive for years to come.”

Everything dully throbbed as he struggled around the words. His wound pulsed as it healed, his head burned from processing every smell, sound, touch. But it was all getting easier as time passed. Normally he’d just meditate or sleep to skip this horrid feeling, but something deep down was telling him that Jaskier needed him to speak, and he’d never ignored the bard’s needs before.

“It was a carefully calculated risk, Jaskier.”

Jaskier looked and sounded like a petulant child as he replied, “I don’t believe you.”

“Well, if I hadn’t’ve taken those potions, I would _definitely_ be dead by now. You as well.” That caught Jaskier’s attention, and Geralt knew he had said the right thing. “I was losing, I needed to win, so I took the risk.”

Geralt tried to be reassuring, trying to help Jaskier understand and see logic through his haze of emotion. If Jaskier hadn’t been so upset he would’ve been irritated by Geralt’s slow, patronising speech.

“You’ve seen me fight so many times, you know how It goes. I have to take potions to be stronger sometimes.” He gave a light nudge and Jaskier looked over to him.

After a moment, Jaskier allowed a weak smile and relaxed back into the bed. He turned so he was facing Geralt, who silently allowed Jaskier to snake an arm over his belly.

“I just hate seeing you struggle. I don’t like it. I hate seeing you losing.”

“And you don’t want me to leave you,” Geralt mumbled, holding Jaskier’s hand where it sat on his bloodied clothes.

“And I don’t want you to leave me,” he confirmed. His breath tickled at Geralt’s throat.

“Then I promise I’ll be more careful.”

The two remained in a comfortable silence for a while. Thoughts were swarming in Geralt’s mind as he remembered how careful Jaskier had been with him in the clearing, thinking for him, guiding him back to the inn with a reluctant ease. He’d known that too much talking would stress him, and he’d understood what Geralt needed. He’d remembered his sword, he’d remembered the trophy, he’d remembered everything that was important in that moment and taken care of the witcher like no-one ever did. He’d cared, and he still cared now.

Suddenly, Geralt pulled the bard close to him, Jaskier letting out a surprised little noise. The bard craned his neck up to glance at his eyes, and as soon as their gazes met Geralt kissed him, Jaskier’s salty tears still lingering on his lips as Geralt caught them, and the witcher felt overwhelming love hit him bluntly in the chest.

“Thank you for worrying about me, Jaskier,” he whispered into the other’s hair, crushing him tightly in his embrace. Because Jaskier _had_ worried. At a time when every other blasted human would be thinking about themselves, running from his ferocious face – Jaskier had come to him and stroked him, soothed him, cared for him. Jaskier had worried about him as he’d watched him lose, and he’d cared for him with knowledgeable delicacy that he shouldn’t have needed to use. He wasn’t like anyone else.

“You’re welcome, just don’t be a fucking idiot with those things anymore.”

Geralt huffed a little, but softly agreed as he kissed his lovable worrier again, slowly. Tomorrow he’d explain more about how they work, soothe Jaskier’s anxieties about the mysterious vials, but for now he was content just to hold him - to reassure him that he was alive and comfy, safe and in love.

**Author's Note:**

> NL08 on tumblr if you want to drop by at all 💕


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